DA probes 8 deaths linked to Cullen at Easton Hospital

The number of patient deaths under investigation at Easton Hospital in connection with killer nurse Charles Cullen has narrowed to eight, Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli said Thursday.

Morganelli said he and Coroner Zachary Lysek determined the possible victims after checking 24 deaths referred by families of patients and their attorneys after Cullen was arrested in December in New Jersey.

The district attorney identified one of the eight as John R. Sakala, who died Dec. 3, 1998, at the hospital, where his daughter said he was taken because he couldn't shake a bad cold.

Morganelli declined to identify the seven other deaths he is investigating.

He and Lysek ruled out 16 cases after reviewing Easton Hospital records. Some of those deaths occurred when Cullen was not on duty. Others were wrongly identified as having happened at that hospital.

State police questioned Cullen about Sakala in an interview Tuesday in Somerset County, N.J., Morganelli said. He did not know whether Cullen admitted to killing the 84-year-old Palmer Township man.

It is the first time Sakala's death has been linked publicly to Cullen.

The case was referred to Lysek by Two Rivers Hospital Corp., Easton Hospital's former owner, in January as meriting further investigation. Two Rivers did not release Sakala's name at that time.

According to Two Rivers officials, a hospital pathologist detected an abnormally high level of insulin in Sakala's blood after he died, but did not determine that to be the cause of death.

Cullen, of Bethlehem, admitted using insulin to kill some of his patients at Somerset Medical Center when he pleaded guilty April 29 to 13 murders there during 2002 and 2003.

He also agreed to plead guilty to the December 1998 death of Ottomar Schramm at Easton Hospital. Schramm, of Nazareth, died nearly a month after Sakala.

In exchange for avoiding the death penalty, Cullen agreed to help prosecutors in six other counties, including Northampton and Lehigh, identify his other victims. He has said he killed up to 40 patients in his 16-year career as a nurse.

Sakala worked in the compressor division of Ingersoll-Rand, Phillipsburg, retiring in 1978, and was a member of Palmer Moravian Community Church.

His daughter, Jean Zimmerman of Palmer, said she took her father to Easton Hospital on Dec. 2, 1998, because of his persistent cold, and that by the next day, he had died inexplicably. It was just days before Sakala and his wife, Anna, were to leave for six months in Florida.

''They would have been on the train the day we buried my dad,'' she said.

Zimmerman said she and her family just figured he had died a natural death, perhaps from heart failure. The hospital could never provide a good reason.

''Pop's blood sugar had bottomed out, and they never could explain it,'' Zimmerman said.

Then, after Cullen's arrest, she saw a newspaper story saying he had worked at Easton Hospital between November 1998 and March 1999.

''I said, 'Oh my word, that was when Pop was in there,''' Zimmerman said.

Morganelli said Lysek is continuing a general review of medical records of all the patients who died at the hospital during Cullen's tenure there.

In the Sakala case, a hospital spokesman said in January that Easton Hospital's pathologist performed an autopsy, but the death was not investigated by the coroner.

Zimmerman said the autopsy did not answer the family's questions about her father's death.

Although in January he didn't name the patient referred to authorities, Donald Auten, who represents Two Rivers, said the patient had been ''very ill'' with numerous health problems.

''The extremely low serum glucose level was not, in the opinion of the pathologist, the cause of death. It was noted in a comment,'' Auten said.

Asked Thursday whether Two Rivers' internal review turned up eight suspicious deaths, Auten said the review was halted after law enforcement announced plans to investigate all of the deaths that occurred at the hospital during Cullen's tenure.

Another possible Cullen victim, Francis Henry, was hospitalized after an insulin overdose in May 1998 at Allentown's Liberty Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, where Cullen then worked. Henry, 83, of Quakertown died 11 days later. His death is being investigated by Lehigh County District Attorney James Martin.

Lt. William Teper of the state police at Bethlehem acknowledged that investigators interviewed Cullen on Tuesday about his actions at Easton Hospital, but would not talk about what Cullen said or whether he admitted to killing Sakala.

Zimmerman said authorities asked her to supply a picture of her father to help jog Cullen's memory.

''They wanted a picture of Pop, and they felt it was very suspicious,'' she said.

Teper said investigators will need more interviews with the former nurse before they file charges against him for deaths that occurred at the Wilson hospital.

''We want to get all of our ducks in line before we file charges,'' Teper said. ''I can't say when that will be, but the sooner we wrap this up, the better.''